On Friday, November 7, 2003, at 12:42 AM, S-P & M-M Sirag wrote:

Jack,

"Witten (in *Superstring Theory* by Green, Schwarz and Witten) has the
string tension T reciprocal to alpha prime.

So there must be a mistake in the caption to Figure I (p.25) of Witten's
paper, "Reflections on the Fate of Spacetime" (Physics Today, April
1996). In the text of this paper on the same page 25 as Fig. 1, Witten says:

"Likewise, in string theory one introduces a new fundamental
constant a' [alpha prime] = (10^-32 cm)2 controlling the tension of the
string."

Yes, it is a minor point. The picture caption gives the wrong idea
"a string tension alpha' =/= 0"

"He doesn't say that a' = the tension of the string. But since it is the
reciprocal of the string tension (modified by appropriate constants), a'
WOULD control the tension of the string. The more exact statement is in
the 1986 book *Superstring Theory* (pp. 60-61) where the statement is:
"The parameter T has dimensions of (length)^-2 or (mass)^2 and can be
identified as the string tension. It turns out to be related to the
universal Regge slope parameter (for open strings) by

T = [(2pi)a']^-1

On page 71, of this book we find:

"As another example, let us verify at the classical level that a' =
1/(2pi)T is the Regge slope of open strings. The Regge slope is defined
to be the maximum possible angular momentum per unit energy squared."

Yes, which was what I said. Minor sloppiness on the part of Physics Today.

"After some computations they write: "... we see that the maximum
angular momentum per unit energy squared is 1/(2pi)T, confirming the
interpretation of a' as the Regge slope. Furthermore, we see that the
string end points...move at the speed of light (recalling that c = 1 in
our units)."

"This is, of course, the old (bosonic) spinning string model, which has
been generalized upon and supersymmetrized and otherwise modified. Yet
the constant a' seems to still play a fundamental role in the post 1995
M-theory revolution in string theory -- mainly brought about by Witten
himself."

Yes. It is nice that my macro-quantum formulae for Einstein's "low
energy" effective emergent c-number field guv depends on alpha' and
limits to globally flat Minkowski space-time when alpha' -- 0 where the
string tension T goes infinite making it impossible to bend spacetime.
This is a pretty picture!

i.e. in my theory, which seems to be unique and original,

guv = (Minkowski metric)uv + alpha'(Goldstone Phase of Vacuum
Coherence)(,u,v) IT FROM BIT

with the unified exotic vacuum dark energy/matter w = -1 zero point
energy density field

/\zpf = (alpha')^-1{alpha/^3/2|Higgs Amplitude of Vacuum Coherence|^2 - 1}

Note that the zero point energy density, hence the cosmological constant
of Einstein goes to infinity when alpha' -- 0.

This is also a nice result since alpha' -- 0 is when the spatially
extended string limits to a point particle with the infinite
self-energies removed by renormalization algorithms for spin 1/2-spin 1
field theories.

The Vacuum Coherence field, in turn, obeys the Diff(4) covariant
Landau-Ginzburg BIT FROM IT equation

{D^uDu + V(Higgs)}(Vacuum Coherence) = 0

which in the large scale FRW limit is consistent with "chaotic inflation."

Most important I have a precise micro-dynamical mechanism for the
large-scale low energy "More is different" emergence of the
Vacuum Coherence field from QED and non-perturbative BCS which improves
on the adhoc nature of current inflationary cosmology
theory.

'BTW: On Witten's great puzzlement with respect to the very small (but
non-zero) "cosmological constant" which recent astronomical observations
seem to require -- it would be wise to be prepared for this requirement
to disappear. The history of astronomical observations (even relatively
nearby) is rather full of mistakes. The problem is that one is never
completely sure what one is looking at. This is why the Hubble parameter
has been revised so drastically over the years since Hubble's original
(1929) "measurement" of this parameter as around 500 Km per Sec. per
Megaparsec. Nowadays, it is believed to be around 70 (of those wacky
units). Physicists would write the Hubble parameter in units of inverse
time, since the inverse of the Hubble constant is the "Hubble time" a
rough estimate of the "age of the universe."

I don't quite understand what your point is here? The cosmological
constant is now measured quite precisely as the "dark energy" component
with Omega(dark energy) ~ 0.7. I do not think it will go away. The main
data is from Type Ia supernovae. That the Universe is accelerating from
a small cosmological constant is now I think an established experimental
fact from Saul Perlmutter's Berkeley et-al group. Also Ho is now quite
precisely known to ~ 2%.

Details are in April 2003 Physics Today and synopsed in my

http://qedcorp.com/APS/StarGate1.mov

"All for now ;-)"

Saul-Paul

----------
From: Jack Sarfatti
To: "Mitchell Porter"
Subject: The Emperor's New G-String
Date: Thu, Nov 6, 2003, 8:23 PM


Q to Ed Witten: How can the cosmological constant be so close to zero
but not zero?

Ed Witten's answer: "I really don't know. It's very perplexing that
astronomical observations seem to show that there is a cosmological
constant. It's definitely the most troublesome, for my interests,
definitely the most troublesome, observation in physics in my lifetime. In
my career that is."


My answer to the same question is at http://qedcorp.com/APS/StarGate1.mov


A few comments/queries on Ed Witten's semi-popular "Reflections on the
Fate of Space-Time" in Physics Today, April, 1996.

Look at Witten's picture from that article:

Witten seems to think that his string parameter alpha' is really a new
independent fundamental constant of nature independent of the gravity
parameter G, speed of light in non-exotic vacuum c and Planck's constant
h. Also he calls alpha' a "string tension." I think actually it is the
reciprocal of the string tension. It is useful to do an explicit
dimensional analysis and not set h = c = 1 too quickly.

Look at Einstein's semi-classical field equation with the zero point
vacuum fluctuation correction

Guv + /\zpfguv = - (8piG/c^4)Tuv(matter)

Guv has dimensions 1/Area i.e. curvature.

Tuv has dimensions Energy/Volume

Therefore

G/c^4 has dimensions Length/Energy = 1/(String Tension)

Gm^2/hc is dimensionless.

Regge slope is of form (G*/hc^5)E^2 when the quantized spin is a pure
number where G* is a variable G not necessarily equal to Newton's constant.

The definition of alpha' is

Spin = alpha' (Energy)^2 + constant

Therefore, keeping all the constants explicit

alpha' = G*/hc^5 = (hcstring tension)^-1

alpha' is a measure of the spatial extension of the "particle" as a
"vibrating string" where it is understood that most of the vibrations are
"extra-dimensional" in the Calabi-Yau "fiber space."

alpha' = 0 is the point particle low energy local quantum field theory
limit, i.e.quantum field theory without gravity in globally flat space-time.

This is consistent with setting G or more generally G* = 0, i.e.
particle structure is a geometrodynamic effect like in Wheeler's
"wormhole" "Mass without mass" which does work when the micro G is G* =
10^40G(Newton). Note that the wormhole handle is exactly like a string
with two ends stuck to the brane! Wheeler had that one in 1956, but his
G was too small. So far so good. Also these wormhole handles = open
strings with ends stuck to 3-dim brane worlds make the black hole-string
connection intuitively obvious and easy to picture. You can let h -0
as long as c - infinity, which is the classical non-relativistic limit
with finite G. If you let h - 0 by itself with c fixed, then the string
tension must go infinite to have both finite c and finite alpha -- and
so on.

There is also the issue of whether the slick duality idea is really
complete or does it leave out essential physics needed to solve the
Cosmological Constant puzzle?

Witten likes to take h = c = 1 and think of alpha' = 1/(string tension)
as an "area". Suppose this "area" is some-kind of variable Planck area
like in the Susskind "world hologram" with Lp*^2 = hG*/c^3 = Lp^4/3L^2/3
at scale L, which just happens to be Lp*^2 = (1 fermi)^2 when L = c/Ho,
Ho is present epoch value of the Hubble parameter R(t)^-1R(t),t in the
FRW cosmology metric.

Witten's key duality is r' = alpha'/r

The "winding energy" is like the classical gravity radius r = G*m/c^2,
the momentum quantization energy is simply the deBroglie quantum
relation r' = h/p specialized to the Compton relation r' = h/mc.
Therefore, the m's cancel out.

rr' = G*h/c^3 = Lp*^2 = alpha'

rather trivial really. ;-)

A similar thing happens in the Schwarzschild solution for the isotropic
radial coordinate, which is always outside the event horizon. There we have

r'r ~ (Gm/c^2)^2

Where r & r' are in the two coordinate patches outside the event horizon
of the SSS vacuum solution of Einstein's Ruv = 0.

There are TWO more coordinate patches INSIDE the event horizon where
important physics happens!

Similarly, I wonder if Witten and All The King's Men are not missing
some important physics INSIDE alpha' = Lp*^2 that is germane to the
Humpty Dumpty Cosmological Constant puzzle? Or does this Emperor have
no clothes other than the G-string? :-)

G.E. Volovik in "The Universe in a Helium Droplet" thinks so. It's like
condensed matter physicists mis-computing a very large phonon zero point
crystal vibration energy because they neglect what is going on INSIDE
the unit cells of the lattice, i.e. sub-alpha' physics.

On Thursday, November 6, 2003, at 03:01 PM, Jack Sarfatti wrote:

The way Ed Witten might write my basic formulae in terms of the
fundamental string parameter alpha' with h = c = 1 so that alpha' is
essentially the effective Planck area inside of which we need fancy math
like non-commutative "matrix" space-time, i.e. Galois extension of
space-time continuum of real numbers to the hypercomplex numbers like
the "fermionic" extra space dimensions of supersymmetry. The formulae
below are at scales larger than effective Planck area.

Einstein's geometrodynamic field = Minkowski metric + alpha' (Goldstone
Phase)(,u,v)

,u are ordinary partial derivatives in 4D

Goldstone Phase = arg (Vacuum Coherence)

/\zpf = Exotic Vacuum Unified Dark Energy/Matter Field =
(alpha')^-1[(alpha')^3/2|Vacuum Coherence|^2 - 1)

/\zpf 0 is w = -1 anti-gravity exotic vacuum "dark energy"

/\zpf 0 is w = -1 gravitating exotic vacuum "dark matter" which mimics
w = 0 CDM for us distant observers.

Vacuum Coherence = (Higgs Field)e^i(Goldstone Field)

O(2) symmetry implies 1D string quantized vortex core topological
defects like in a Type II superconductor.

On Wednesday, November 5, 2003, at 06:11 PM, Jack Sarfatti wrote:

Look at "Elegant Universe" NOVA tonight.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/

Brian Greene telephoned an ET Gray on brane universe next door a
millimeter away using presumably Ray Chiao's "gravity radio" transducer
of off-brane world gravity waves to stuck-on-brane EM waves for
communication between parallel "Level 1 & II" (Max Tegmark) IT worlds.
;-) Also long part on Star Gate time and space-travel. Ed Witten & Co
http://superstringtheory.com/people/witten.html would be considered real
kooks by the SI CSICOPS if their actual words were given to the CSICOPS
without identifying who they were in a blind fold "Turing Test." The
tidy classical universe of James Oberg & Co is not the Universe of Ed
Witten & Co.

BTW

PS
In my theory

Vacuum Coherence Field = (Higgs Amplitude Field)e^i(Goldstone Phase Field)

This may correspond to locally gauging the one-parameter dilation
subgroup of the 15 parameter conformal "Penrose Massless Twistor" group
of space-time. I am not sure of that as yet. It does come from a
dynamical instability in the Dirac electron vacuum, i.e. virtual photon
exchange between virtual electrons and virtual positron "holes" near the
-mc^2 Fermi surface well inside the 2mc^2 gap giving non-perturbative
"Bose-Einstein" condensation of bound virtual electron-positron pairs
into the complex scalar MACRO-QUANTUM local Vacuum Coherence Field.

Einstein's c-number gravity field for curved space-time is then

guv = (Minkowski metric)u,v + (Planck Area*)(Goldstone Phase)(,u,v)

torsion potential is

suv = (Planck Area*)(Goldstone Phase)[,u,v]

, is ordinary partial derivative.

/\ zpf = Exotic Vacuum Random Zero Point Fluctuation Field = (Planck
Area*)^-1[(Planck Volume*)|Vacuum Coherence Field|^2 - 1)

The strongly attractive dark matter cores of positive pressure inside
the vibrating "strings" have |Vacuum Coherence Field| = 0.

*Note change of sign from my earlier formulae to make the sign
conventions internally consistent where, in the weak field limit

Laplacian of w = -1 Exotic Vacuum Gravity Potential per unit test
particle = c^2/\zpf

where a negative RHS is attractive gravity of positive pressure in the
more general and a positive RHS is repulsive anti-gravity of negative
pressure equal but opposite in sign to the zero point fluctuation energy
density,

Laplacian of Gravity Potential of any "stuff" = G(Mass Density)(1 + 3w)

w = Pressure/Energy Density

The Vacuum Coherence Field is a function of 4 local space-time
coordinates + bosonic coordinates of extra space-dimensions + fermionic
matrix dimensions). Therefore the 1-dim strings vibrate in the
Calabi-Yau fiber space to make the lepto-quarks and gauge force bosons.

All topological defects of the complex scalar Vacuum Coherence Field
with local O(2) symmetry in ordinary space time must be 1-dim strings.
"Branes" mean order parameters with local symmetry larger than O(2).
That is, the Vacuum Coherence Field becomes a hyper-complex number or
matrix function of matrix space-time coordinates on the short scale
inside the effective Planck scale Lp* ~ 1 fermi not 10^-33 cm. My toy
model here is for large macro-scale primarily 10^-13 cm.

The basic universal Regge slope is Ed Witten's "alpha' where

Spin of hadronic resonance = alpha' (Energy)^2 + constant

alpha' = G*/hc^5

Where Lp*^2 = hG*/c^3

G* ~ 10^40 G(Newton)

G* = c^3Lp*^2/h

alpha' = (Lp*/hc)^2

Note that the center of the quantized vibrating Type II "superconductor"
string in hyperspace has Vacuum Coherence Field = 0, therefore

/\zpf(string core) = - 1/Lp*^2 = - (hc)^2alpha'

This, in the case of the electron, solves the problem of the
Abraham-Lorentz-Becker stresses that prevent the spatially extended
electron from exploding due to its self-charge internal + centrifugal
repulsion. The classical space-time singularity seems to be removed as
well as the need for renormalization infinities - the latter for reasons
pointed out by Ed Witten & Co (e.g. April 1996 Physics Today
"Reflections on the Fate of Space-Time"

You can picture a bare electron either as string e^2/mc^2 ~ 1 fermi
(with ends glued to 3 dim brane world) or, via complementarity, as a
tiny quasi rotating charged black hole. This bare electron is surrounded
by a cloud of virtual electron-positron plasma reaching out to a Compton
distance ~ 137(e^2/mc^2) = h/mc. That is for low energy imaging. For
high energy imaging with deep small scale probes the same electron
shrinks in apparent size to ~ 10^-18 cm for current technology because
of the huge micro-gravity space warping.